


i choose you, today, every day

by marvelleous



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Lots of Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 21:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9626921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marvelleous/pseuds/marvelleous
Summary: he had given everything to get her back; she would do the same for him. they had survived, lived through so much; she wouldn't let this take him away from her.





	

In this moment, Melinda May is caught between two worlds. 

“I saved the girl,” she says, and she’s crying on the phone to her husband, who she misses and she can’t wait to return home to. She had saved her team too, and she should feel nothing but joy. But there’s a strange emptiness. Like something or someone is missing. 

But… but she can’t quite place who. 

Until that world fades into another, and all she feels is pain. There’s noise all around her but she can only hear the gunshot, the bullet she had fired…

“Let the girl go.”

She’s crying here too; nothing makes sense. She’s so scared because she had saved the girl, but now the girl is dead. She’s shaking and the tears won’t stop, but there are two strong arms around her and she’s keeping her breathing as even as she can, to the steady thump of a beating heart. 

The world is broken and Phil is here for her, holding her. 

And then she’s alone. 

The area in front of her is empty but then she turns and the girl is there, asleep, strapped to a stretcher. Safe, Alive. She’d saved her. She wasn’t a monster. She smiles through her tears, she can’t even feel the wound in her leg. She’s elated. She pulls out her phone to call him, her husband. 

“I did it, Andrew. I saved the girl.”

She turns, just to check, just to make sure, but the girl is gone. She turns back, and Phil’s there, pulling her into his embrace on more as she sobs against him. 

There’s so much pain. It feels like it will never stop. Nothing will take the hurt away completely, but, she thinks it hurts less when Phil is there, when he comforts her and tells her that they’ll get through this. 

She trusts him. 

She needs him. 

He holds her and she tries to hold him back but then he’s slipping through her fingers and she finds herself in a new nightmare. 

“Coulson’s dead.”

She’s at her desk in Administration. The room was dark around her before, but not it feels like there is no light left in the world. Maria has one hand on her shoulder as she delivers the news, trying to comfort her, but everything is fading. The colours, the sounds, the oxygen. 

She can’t breathe. 

It’s a cruel joke. Any moment Phil will stroll in, a little banged up but alive. He can’t, he can’t be dead. She grips the edges of her seat so tightly her knuckles turn white and she can no longer see the world around her; the tears blurring her vision. 

It’s not true. 

It can’t be true. 

The phone on her desk rings and she can barely hear it, but her hands shakily reach out for it and then everything stops again. 

“May, turn around.” 

It’s.. it’s his voice. She turns, so violently, so quickly, and he’s there, smiling at her, phone to his ear and she’s rooted to the spot. 

He’s alive.. He didn’t die. 

And then she’s in his arms again and all is right with the world once more. He slowly pulls away, and tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear, fingers lightly brushing against her cheek as he does so. 

“I missed you out there today,” he tells her, and she manages to respond with a small smile, looking away as she does so. 

His thumb runs across her cheekbone and he leans down, softly pressing a kiss to her lips, a look of content washing across his features. He looks so happy, and everything is okay and no one is dying, so why can she not accept it? 

Phil’s here. He’s not dead. He missed her. 

_ He kissed her. _

This.. This can't be real. She takes a step back and just stares at him, waiting for him to disappear. This is just a dream, a nightmare, she can't tell. But she knows that it isn't real.

Phil, he doesn't love her like that. They were partners, friends. They had made a promise, to not cross those boundaries, to preserve their friendship. He didn't have those feelings, the ones that she had to hold back. The ones she locked away and tried to forget, only to have them come tumbling to the surface every time she missed him, every time she needed someone by her side.

She loved him. Deep down she did. 

He doesn't feel the same way; this is a trap. She's stuck, in this horrible place, where their feelings are lies and there is so much pain.

And so she she drifts between dreams and memories, before it is all ripped away from her by a single call of her name.   
  
"May! wake up!"   
  
She tries to open her eyes but it's so hard, she feels frozen, like her mind can no longer control her body. And so she tries again, and again, until finally there is a sliver of light in the darkness, growing and growing.   
  
She finds herself staring at a face.   
  
Daisy's face.   
  
She tries to speak, but her throat is dry and she thinks she probably hasn't spoken in a while. What happened with Radcliffe? AIDA? How long has it been? They are all questions she wants to ask. But as she scans the room, she feels a sense of dread washing over her.    
  
Where was Phil?   
  
She had felt no energy, no will to move. But now she is forcing her limbs to obey, struggling to push herself up off the bed only to be held back by Daisy.   
  
"May, you have to calm down," she hears but the words do nothing to comfort her.   
  
"Where's Phil?" She manages to croak out, forcing herself to breathe, drawing one painful mouthful after another of air into her lungs.   
  
She had been missing. He, he was her best friend. After Bahrain, he had been there for her. Where was he now?   
  


* * *

 

  
Daisy keeps both hands on May's shoulders, gently pressing her back down against the bed. She had never seen the woman so weak before. They'd had to knock her out after rescuing her from Radcliffe to stop her from fighting them as they transported her back to base. She had stayed asleep, unmoving, for hours during the flight, and as they moved her from the Zephyr to the medbay.

Simmons is standing by ready to administer a heavier dose of drugs to keep May under in necessary. They had agreed it would be for the best to keep her from hurting herself in her confusion.    
  
"Where is Phil?" May says again, this time louder, the words tearing through the air between them.   
  
Daisy looks over to Simmons, who shakes her head softly.   
  
They had agreed on the flight back to base that it would be best to break the news to May gently. But Daisy has no idea how to tell someone that their best friend? Partner? Something more? She didn't know, had traded themselves in order to rescue them. The truth was no one knew where Coulson was now. They hadn't known about his stupid plan until they had been let into Radcliffe's lab and the bad doctor was slowly undoing May's restraints.   
  
Daisy had stood there, held back by Mack, watching, helpless as Coulson approached May and just cradled her face in his hands, brushing a kiss across her forehead before surrendering to The Superior. Radcliffe then tore May out of whatever dream she was in and she had blindly attacked him.    
  
"Don't hurt her. Make sure she's safe," Coulson had called out to them as they took him away, and Daisy held back tears as she rushed forward and tried to restrain May. In the end, a syringe plunged into her arm had knocked her out, and Mack had picked her up and carried her out of there as Daisy looked back and caught the shadows of the men retreating with Coulson.

They'd saved May, but at what cost?


End file.
